General Ray Odierno, the former second-in-command of US troops in Iraq, is to return to Baghdad next week to take over from General David Petraeus as the top general.

Odierno, who will be promoted to four-star general, was a relative latecomer to the hearts and minds counterinsurgency techniques of Petraeus.

During his first stint in Iraq, when he commanded the 4th Infantry Division in 2003, Odierno was responsible for an area north of Baghdad known as the Sunni triangle, which included Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town.

Few US military commanders or soldiers have much good to say about Odierno's aggressive tactics. His division's mistreatment of Iraqis and the heavy use of artillery appalled others within the country's armed forces.

Army reporters and commanders said Odierno's unit - a heavy armoured division, despite its name – used an iron-fist strategy that may have appeared to pacify the area in the short term, but alienated large parts of the population. Some argue that the behaviour of the 4th Infantry Division helped create the insurgency.

"Fourth ID fuelled the insurgency," an army psychological operations officer told Thomas Ricks in his book on the Iraq war, Fiasco. An unnamed general said bluntly: "The 4th ID – what they did was a crime."

Odierno has defended his troops' conduct by saying his men faced a population more hostile than in the rest of Iraq and had to act accordingly. The capture by Saddam in an underground bunker in December 2003 by Odierno's soldiers did little to dispel their cowboy image.

The division's tactics contrasted with those of Petraeus, whose troops complemented searches of ex-Baathists' homes with meetings with tribal chiefs and community projects such as rebuilding schools and painting over old murals of Saddam Hussein. Petraeus went on to rewrite the US military's counterinsurgency manual (pdf) and then took overall command in Iraq.

Odierno, who finished a 15-month stint as the second in charge in February, was slow in recognising the strength of the insurgency at the start of 2004. At the time, he told reporters that the insurgents had been "brought to their knees". He was not alone in his overconfidence. A few months later, violence erupted and US forces all but ceded control of places such as Fallujah to the rebels.

Later in 2004, the war took a brutally personal twist for Odierno. His son, Tony, an army lieutenant at the time, lost an arm to a rocket-propelled grenade. A West Point graduate, the younger Odierno left the army and went to graduate school in New York.

For the older Odierno, Iraq was unfinished business. He returned in late 2006 and redeemed himself by recognising the failings of the US strategy at the time, recommending more troops at a time when the White House was under enormous political pressure to withdraw forces.

"His recommendations for what came to be known as the surge forces have since been proven correct," Petraeus said at a ceremony in Baghdad marking the end of Odierno's last tour in February.

Odierno seems to have adopted the Petraeus approach, telling troops that it is their job to protect the population and that counter-insurgency takes time.

When he takes up his new post he will answer to Petraeus, who will take over in late October as chief of US central command, which oversees US military involvement in the Middle East, Afghanistan and the rest of central Asia. Odierno and Petraeus know each other well: for the final 12 months of Odierno's time in Baghdad his immediate superior was Petraeus.

Odierno will be taking over at a time of relative calm. The surge has contributed to a big drop in sectarian violence and the newly confident Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is keen to see the withdrawal of all US combat troops by 2010, although he will probably have to settle for a compromise of 2011.

George Bush yesterday announced a withdrawal of 8,000 US combat troops by February, but that would still leave his successor with about 140,000 troops – roughly the same as the pre-surge levels of last February. It will be Odierno's job to ensure that the gains of the past year are not reversed and to set the stage for an eventual US withdrawal.

Odierno's margin for manoeuvre could depend not only what happens on the ground, but on who wins the US presidential race. He favours a "conditions-based" approach to judging US troop requirements in Iraq, taking into account levels of violence, the strength of insurgent groups and changes in the quality and numbers of Iraqi government troops. John McCain, the Republican candidate, backs such an approach, whereas Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, wants a firm timetable.